Overcoming tragedy, Durfee grad lands scholarship opportunity

Codie Brown earns full scholarship to the Universal Technical Institute

Michael Holtzman Herald News Staff Reporter @MDHoltzman

Michael Holtzman

Herald News Staff Reporter

FALL RIVER — Your name is Codie Brown, you’re 19 and lived your life in working class Fall River.

You’re well-spoken, nice looking and smart.

But not everything’s gone your way.

Your parents are split up and have had problems not easily overcome. Among your three younger siblings, the two youngest lost their father, your stepfather, in a car accident. That’s left you, as a teen, to be a father figure, trying to guide and show them right from wrong long before the natural progression of growing up yourself.

“I had a few tragedies,” Brown is saying sitting one afternoon on his maternal grandmother’s porch in Westport.

He explains his plans for high school and afterwards that went awry.

After freshman year at B.M.C. Durfee High School he transferred to Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School to pursue a career. He took electricity when auto mechanics was full.

That year of the car accident he missed 30 days of school. Not meeting requirements, back to Durfee he went.

He lived with his father for a period, then when that didn’t work out had to support himself for about eight months, working jobs after school like at McDonald’s. “It was so hard,” he said.

Brown, who said he aced his math courses, did well in English and said his G.P.A. senior year was a 3.7, graduating with his classmates. “Class of 2014,” he says proudly, pumping his arms.

Now a remarkable opportunity is knocking on the door for this Durfee grad.

He put aside plans to enter the military, believing his family needed him closer by.

Instead, his mother, Kristie Garcia, whom he’s back living with in the northern part of the city, encouraged him to pursue a scholarship to Universal Technical Institute. UTI, based in Arizona. The program offers career training in various transportation areas and has a dozen campuses around the country, the closest in Norwood.

To apply, candidates needed to submit a compelling video with their application, said Joan DeCoste, a spokeswoman for the UTI scholarship program that’s sponsored by Mike Rowe Works Foundation.

The partners launched this program to bring attention to “well-paying, in-demand careers” in this industry that do not require a four-year degree, DeCoste said.

This year about $1 million in full scholarships were awarded to 33 students. Brown was one of them.

His interest in automobiles — particularly fast ones and fancy ones — developed working with his stepfather and also a friend fixing up their cars, he said. The friend has a brother who raced. Brown watched.

“I loved it,” he said.

DeCoste, referencing his video via YouTube on UTI’s Facebook page, said it described Brown’s family challenges. “Codie’s strong character, exemplified by his desire to be a role model both in his family and his community, along with his determination to someday open his open auto repair business is evident throughout the video,” she said.

Not only did Codie Brown win a full $50,000 scholarship for a one-year program in automotive technology, he received the second most votes of anyone in the country based upon the video presentations. Brown received 1,312 votes and along with a young man from Pennsylvania were the only ones with more than 1,000 votes among 270 finalists, he and DeCoste reported.

Showing some youthful idealism, Brown said he was thrilled with the scholarship but not the public voting method. He noted in his case members of his church helped boost his numbers and he felt it was “like a popularity contest.”

His sincerity, however, comes through on the video. “If you guys give me this opportunity, this one chance, you will not regret it,” he said. He vowed they’d see his name as a top performer in his graduating class.

“I can’t wait to give it my all,” said Brown during the interview, with his Aunt Amanda sitting nearby.

Among his passions are music and playing the drums. He played snare for a year with St. Anthony’s Church’s Portuguese high school marching band, and he hopes someday to have a band with a guitar-playing friend. He drives a juiced 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT.

Brown begins his 56-week basic training course Sept. 8 at the Norwood campus, about a 45-minute drive from Fall River.

He’ll attend six hours of classes five days a week from early in the morning. With two sisters, ages 3 and 12, and a younger brother, 8, he’ll work after school to help support the family, he said. He recently started a job at Sam’s Club in Fall River.

After his initial automotive course work, he plans to seek scholarships to take UTI’s 15-week Mercedes course, followed by a 20-week elite course in hopes of preparing him to work for a Mercedes dealership, he said. That’s the road he hopes to be on to reach his goal of opening his own specialized repair shop.

“Wish me luck,” he concludes on a 1-minute video to accompany this story.

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